EFF

The EFF splintered and there is now a “New Economic Freedom Front” party. How big this splinter group is if it matters, I don’t know. I still wonder what the EFF will be like without Malema. He is the driving force behind the whole thing and I don’t think the other EFF people can do it without him. Is it going to be another “Here today, gone tomorrow” party?

Perhaps, but something pretty much like it will soon take its place. There is a market in South Africa’s politics for a loony left party. And it’s probably better that the frustrated masses have a party to vote for rather than that they take to the streets and burn down libraries. So I am kind of glad the EFF exists, even though I pray to the FSM that they never win an election. :slight_smile:

Anyway, we seem to be in a bit of trouble at the moment. The government seems to be hell-bent on stopping economic growth, and I am increasingly beginning to think it’s a quite deliberate ploy to keep the population poor, unemployed and uneducated, so that, in return for government welfare, they will keep on voting the ruling party back into power.

The ruling party has been pulling such fast ones more or less since the turn of the millennium. They have diverted various revenue streams into social grants. Plausibly, we hear rumours told about how social grant recipients are made to fear that not voting for the ANC will see the end of their grants. Social grants, apart from being far and away the government’s largest single budgeted expenditure, are the currency they happily use to purchase votes from the great unwashed. Two of the most substantial such revenue streams they redirected are the savings for basic infrastructure development (principally power generation) and the fuel levy which was earmarked for road maintenance and development. This is why they are so dead set against an additional fuel levy to replace e-tolling. It would expose the shocking magnitude of their vote-buying shenanigans.

SA’s income tax base is around 5.5 million. SASSA has almost 16 million registered social grant recipients. The imbalance and long-term unsustainable fiscal burden of this situation are manifestly obvious.

The profound injustice of it all is that the productive section of society, many of whom don’t vote for the ruling party, are providing the means and funds that allow the ruling party to maintain its majority. That’s current SA politics in a nutshell.

'Luthon64

I am now depressed. Will that qualify me for a grant? If you can’t beat them, join them?

Someone should do a similar analysis of our past few presidents’ speeches… :slight_smile:

Further to my post of October 11 2014 at 17:40:07 PM, Allister Sparks adds some details about where we seem to be headed…

'Luthon64

I am now really, really depressed. :cry:

“From the Post Office to Eskom, from the SABC to South African Airways, from the education system to the health services, from the state of the SA National Defence Force to e-tolling and the extravagance of the unaccountable State Security Agency, all are in crisis.”

And crisis, my friends, is another word for “opportunity.” All of these services will now have to be taken over by the private sector. Which is, er, us.

I already have my nice job as teacher at a private school thanks to the mess the government made of education (at least here in Gauteng, private schools are popping up like mushrooms on a dung heap). Who knows what other fine opportunities the government might give us? :slight_smile:

So true, I’m taking the leap next year and starting my own thing thanks to all the private schools, seems there is a gap in the market for pshychology at (private) schools and parents seem happy to pay other people to give their kids the attention they dont get at home… Who am I to argue?

I have heard that enterprising individuals in Zim live like kings providing basic necessities that a govt really should.

Government failure provides opportunities for companies such as Netcare, Postnet, Curro and Kulula, but that is a small consolation in comparison to the huge damage it does to the economy. In many instances, it is the role of government to provide subsidized or free essential services to sectors of the population who cannot afford market related prices. It is ironic that the effect of government failure amounts to privatization, considering their stated goal of a developmental state with extensive state intervention in all spheres of life.

Please do (start your psych business, that is) - at the school where I work, we have loads of kids who are completely EFF-ed in the head because of parental neglect. You should consider starting a sort of “Big Brother” thing, arranging for some of these kids to have substitute parents.

But it is precisely these people who keep on voting the same incompetent government back into power. I am fresh out of sympathy.

It is ironic that the effect of government failure amounts to privatization, considering their stated goal of a developmental state with extensive state intervention in all spheres of life.

Yup. If there is one thing I am grateful for when it comes to government incompetence, it is that it extends to their ability to enforce any of their idiotic laws. :slight_smile:

Brilliant idea!!! I can work with this, big brothers/sisters… Didnt think about this at all.

https://www.afriforum.co.za/afriforum-submits-charges-assault-intimidation-crimen-injuria-julius-malema/

Like his parent organisation, AfriForum’s Ernst Roets is a slippery customer. He disingenuously neglected to mention that Malema’s alleged “victim”, one Cassie Moller, was extremely verbally abusive and threatening towards the black staff before Malema intervened.

While violence, battery and assault (verbal abuse alone can be enough to constitute assault) cannot be condoned, it is typical of both AfriForum and Malema to paint such incidents with a, er, black-and-white motif. The idea that Malema is the unprovoked aggressor against an angelically innocent Moller is a self-serving pot of bubbling slime.

The more I learn of AfriForum’s systemic dishonesty, habitual pathetic whining, pervasive spinelessness, narrow-minded bigotry and partisanship, the more that body disgusts me.

'Luthon64

Ja nee, I chacked (laik in benoni bru) that video out and to me it also seems that said person was behaving badly before Malema and co step in. I neglected to comment to see if someone else agreed.

But also, that little push? Assault? Technically sure but…

pervasive spinelessness
Is one way to put it without invoking profanity.

Maybe the guy accidentally took Malema’s slaptjips.

Since we were on the topic of privatisation…

Who needs the post office anyway?

I find it telling that workers, after having been warned numerous times in years now long past, in this country are literally striking themselves into unemployment.

Renewed the licence disk for a trailer today at the Post Office. Counter guy took his sweet time about it. Asked if he was striking or merely on a go-slow. Got a look.

Rigil